Scrubbing back and forth, hunting down every um, every ah, every dead pause one frame at a time — that's the bit of editing that eats your life, and the bit nobody watching ever sees. With 2,000 videos behind me, I've felt every minute of it. So for months I've been hunting a real way to cut it down, and today I'm testing one that actually did: an AI video editor called Riverside.

No studio, no theory. I took one raw, unedited talking-head file — my "Top 10 Lessons From Becoming a YouTube Creator" piece for my other channel, Freedom and Action — dragged it into Riverside, and edited the whole thing in front of you. Transcription, filler-word removal, noise removal, captions, music, B-roll, then one click that turned the finished video into ten-plus ready-to-post shorts. Here's exactly what it does, and where it doesn't.

▶Watch the Full Walkthrough

01What Is Riverside?

Some of you won't have heard of it, and if you have, you probably know it as a remote recording tool — 4K interviews and podcasts, that's where it started. It's grown up into a full AI video editor, and that's the part I've been testing.

The idea behind it is dead simple. Instead of dragging clips around a timeline for hours, Riverside turns your video into a transcript — every word you said, as text — and you edit the video by working with that text plus a handful of one-click AI tools. Delete a word, the footage cuts. Click a button, the ums are gone. Type a request, it makes the change. That's the concept: editing without the timeline. Once you've seen it work, it's hard to go back.

02The Test: One Raw, Unedited File

I don't review things in a studio and I wasn't about to start here. My camera's set up behind me where I film everything, and the file I used was a genuine raw recording from my desk — me talking through those ten lessons, warts and all.

It had the lot in it: the ums, the pause where I lost my thread completely, and a background hum off the air conditioning. That's what a real raw file sounds like, and normally that's the point where my evening disappears. Instead I dragged it straight into Riverside.

03Transcription: 99% Accurate, 100+ Languages

First thing it does is transcribe the entire video — every word turned into text, sitting right next to the footage. Here's the number that matters: that transcription is around 99% accurate, and it works in over 100 languages.

For me that's a big deal, because I run a stack of localised channels. Accurate transcription across that many languages is useful all on its own. And it's free — you don't pay for the thing the rest of the app is built on.

04One Click: Every Um, Ah and Pause Gone

First job is always the filler. Normally this is hours — scrubbing, zooming in, cutting one frame at a time. Here it's a single click.

Every um, every ah, every awkward silence stripped out of the whole video in one hit, and the footage cut to match. I didn't touch the timeline once. For someone like me, that is the single biggest time saver in the entire app.

05Noise Removal, Camera Switching & Captions

It doesn't stop at filler. That air-conditioning hum I showed you — one click, background noise removed, and my voice still sounds like my voice, not something processed to death.

Because it knows who's speaking, it also shifts the shot to whoever's talking, so you're never left staring at the wrong person in a two-hander. And it generates captions off that same transcript without being asked.

06Text-Based Editing: Delete a Word, the Footage Cuts

This is the bit that sold me. Say there's a line I don't want. I don't go hunting through a timeline, I don't zoom in frame by frame trying to find it. I highlight the word in the text and I delete it — and the footage adapts instantly. The cut's made the second the text is gone.

Editing videos by editing a document. I said it the first time I saw it and I'll say it again: for a talking-head video, this is the fastest editing I have ever done.

07Music, Stock B-Roll & AI-Generated B-Roll

Then you make it feel like a proper video. Riverside has a built-in mood-tagged music library, so I found something that fitted the vibe of the lessons video, dropped it on, and set the volume to fade under my voice. Done — and I never left the app to go digging through a stock site, which I normally always have to do.

Then a nice surprise: B-roll. There's a stock library to pull from, but the clever one is that it'll generate B-roll with AI — I type what I want and it makes the shot. Is that replacing a cinematic B-roll shoot? No. But for dropping a quick visual behind a point you're making, it's handy, and I did not expect an editor to just make it for me.

08Co-Creator Chat & Manual Control

This is where it stops feeling like software and starts feeling like there's an editor sat next to you. It's called Co-Creator Chat, and you edit by typing to it. Instead of clicking through menus, I tell it what I want. "Make the captions bigger and put them at the bottom." Done. "Swap the music to something calmer." Done. It's a conversation with your editor, except your editor is the AI. For anyone who finds editing software intimidating, this is the friendliest way in I've seen.

And no, it's not a black box that takes over. If I want in there myself, I jump on the timeline, change clips manually, trim, move things around. Automated speed when you want it, manual control when you need it.

09Show Notes, Summary & Chapters

One small thing that adds up. It writes my show notes — a summary of the whole video — plus chapter markers generated off the transcript. So the YouTube description and the timestamps are basically done for me. Little feature, saves me on every single upload.

10Magic Clips: One Recording, 10+ Shorts

Here's the part that genuinely changed things for me, sitting on a 2,000-video library. It's called Magic Clips. You put the video in, click it, and it takes one long talking-head recording and cuts it into short clips. Not one, not two — 10-plus ready-to-post shorts, already formatted for TikTok, Reels and YouTube Shorts, from a single recording, automatically.

Normally, picking which shorts are worth posting is a guessing game. Not here. Every clip gets a virality score, so it tells me which ones to post first and which to maybe skip — doing the thinking for me on what's likely to perform. I haven't seen that anywhere else. And I'll be straight with you: the shorts you'll see me post off this video next week, I didn't cut them. Riverside cut them. The tool made its own promo. That's why I've kept it.

⚙Full Feature List

Worth knowing before you commit: the 100+ language transcription is free, but full translation and dubbing into other languages sits on a higher plan. If that's on your radar — and running localised channels, it's on mine — check the tier first. Everything else I showed you today, you get. Plans and tiers change, so have a look at the current pricing before you sign up rather than taking my word for it months from now.

$Try It Free + Giveaway

You can use Riverside free, so you can follow along with your own video today and it costs you nothing. If you want the paid tools, the code below gets you a month of Pro free.

Signing up through these links supports the channel at no extra cost to you. For more real-world tech reviews, subscribe to MrYouWho on YouTube — who tests it for you? MrYouWho.

And if you're looking at AI tools for capturing ideas rather than editing them, read our Flowtica Scribe review — the AI pen that records the room and turns it into structured notes.

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Affiliate Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links and reflects a brand partnership with Riverside. As a Riverside affiliate, we may earn a commission from sign-ups made through our link and code at no additional cost to you. All opinions are our own and based on hands-on real-world testing.